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Static Line 42
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cRu|________\ | | Issue #42
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January, 2003 || / \ \__/ / / /___// |
300 Subscribers World Wide | /___/ \ / / __/_ / |
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Table Of Contents
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Opening:
Message From the Editor
Letters From Our Readers
Features:
Your View and Response -- Your Favorites (Replies / New Challenge)
Mindcandy DVD -- In-Depth Review
Mindcandy DVD -- Another View
Party Report -- State of the Art
Competition Announcement -- The Spectrum Music Competition
Reviews:
Music:
The Lineup -- The Best of the Month
Opinion / Commentary:
Editorial -- Art All Around
Early Dawn Reflections -- Unfinished Business
Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene
Closing: Staff and Contact Information
--=--=--
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Message From the Editor
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After a month off, we're back for another issue. Initially, we held
off the December issue pending the release of MindCandy. By the time
it came out, the holiday week was upon us, and my life got crazy.
Sadly, I never got around to editing everything until the New Year
celebration had passed. So, it seems as though we missed a month. But
nevermind that, this is a great issue.
This is also a rather unusual issue. By the time I'm finished
writing this message, it could potentially be our second or third
largest issue of all time. What makes that wierd is the fact that
you'll notice that many of our regular columns are missing this month.
We did this to make room for the important stuff. A lot happened the
past couple of months: MindCandy, The State of the Art Demoparty, to
name a few. As tradition holds, December was not a very good month for
new releases anyhow, so it all works out in the end.
Well, the big feature is the MindCandy review. Seven was kind enough
to review the disc for us in his official in-depth review. The kind
folks at Fusecon and Hornet (Dan "Pallbearer" Wright and Andy "Phoenix"
Voss, specifically) sent Seven a nice little press package so that he
could review the final product. The postage system held things up a
bit (big surprise), but it finally arrived in Seven's mailbox for him
to review. He sent me a very quick message that day stating that he
had given up his ticket to see "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
just so he could get started on the MindCandy review. That would've
been a hard decision for me to make, but I probably would've done the
same thing. Regardless, we're all glad that he had the time to review
the product, and we've brought it to you this month. I also did a
small review which is published immediately after Seven's official
review. But if you had to choose between the two, read his.
Information about getting your own copy of the DVD can be found at the
official website: http://www.mindcandydvd.com
Seven was busy for this issue. In addition to the incredible review
of MindCandy, he also provided us with everyone's favorite feature
article: The Party Report. This time around, he gives us a full
account of his interaction with the "State of the Art" party. As
always, his reports give us a glimpse of what it was really like.
For those of you looking for an internet based music competition,
you'll want to check out the details on the Spectrum Music Competition.
There's a chance that I might be one of the judges.
There are many more things that you'll want to check out in this
issue. I think I've been rambling on too long as it is. So just check
out the table of contents, and read whatever suits your fancy. Please
note that the In Tune and Screen Lit Vertigo columns will return next
month with fresh material.
As always, articles can always be sent in plain text to
coplan@scenespot.org. News briefs can be submitted to SceneSpot at
http://www.scenespot.org.
Until Next time.
--Coplan
--=--=--
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Letters From Our Readers
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-=- A Message from Sergeeo -=-
How's it going?
I've just finished reading your Static Line e-zine #41 and...I've been
looking for something like it for ages! Articles are incredibly pleasant
and I must say that the ascii format is just perfect. I've found it as a
very well-done work and I encourage you to keep on releasing it. I
especially liked that article called "My addiction". In my opinion it
expresses in a perfect way the tracking philosphy...and its problems :-)
Every paradigm reveals its weakness sooner or later! A neat work this
e-zine of yours! Well, I haven't introduced myself! I'm Sergio de Prado
(aka sergeeo). I'm Spanish & I'm keen on tracking since '96 or so. I use
to take a look around and upload tunes to www.modulez.org I love
demostyle and chip music (I am now experimenting with Paragon 5) but I
love all kinds of music. Let's go with the suggestions:
-What about an article about the increasing number of releases of
chipdisks?
-It would be nice to review the whole trajectory of some ass-kicking
trackers: Beek, Virt, Skaven...
To sum up: keep up the good work!
Best Regards:
--Sergeeo of Niako
-=- Reply From Coplan -=-
Greetings Sergeeo,
First off, I'm glad you like this little magazine that I carry under
my wing. We miss a couple of months here or there, but that's due to
my busy schedule. All in all, I always try to release a good quality
issue, and I'm glad it's working out for some of our readers.
As for Vill's Article (Inside My Mind: My Addiction, Issue #41),
that's a great read. Vill submitted a sample article to me a couple
months ago and I really enjoyed his style. You're absolutely right, he
catches the mood perfectly. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get
anything in this month. Nevermind that. He'll be contributing when he
can. We all look forward to his next release.
In response to your suggestions: As far as the chipdisk article, I
don't claim to be a chip tune expert. I enjoy the style, but I don't
feel that I know enough about it to write about it. It's definately a
widely respected art form, and one that isn't often done too
effectively. I'd love to have such an article, however. Know of anyone
willing to write it for me? Your idea about an article reviewing a
whole bunch of tunes from one artist is a good one. I'll keep that in
the back of my mind. Maybe I'll do such a thing in a future edition of
In Tune.
As always, I enjoy your feedback. I intend to be here for a while
publishing Static Line (give or take a month here or there, heh). With
readers like yourself, it would be hard to leave.
--Coplan
--=--=--
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Your View and Response
Your Favorites (Replies and a New Challenge)
By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Last Issue, Issue #41 (Released in November), I challenged the readers
of Static Line to write in about their favorite tunes. I got a few
responses. Not nearly as many as I would've liked. But the cleanest
responses will be published here today.
For those of you who havn't responded yet, my mailbox is still open.
If you would like to write in about your favorite scene tune of all
time, send your contribution to me: coplan@scenespot.org. I will
continue to publish cleanly written responses so long as they are sent
to me.
-=- Favorite Tune from Andrew 'Truck' Holland -=-
Well, certainly we've capitalized on this idea at Nectarine - where
we not only have the ability to mark 'favorites' but we have voting and
rankings and then the 'most requested' lists. Having listened to
Nectarine for over a year straight now, and having spent much time
talking to scene regulars there and getting more sceners addicted, I'm
happy to say that it's a fair bit representative of the scene's
favorites.
There are too many votes for 2nd Reality tune 2 by Purple Motion, but
for a long while 2nd Reality 64 by KB was #1. And that's kinda
indicative of the scene, we appreciate quality work that pushes limits.
We've also introduced folks to some new favorites - substitutionology
by Beek, for example, was a chiptune that won a compo. Well, tiny
instruments; the tune itself is a tad large for a chiptune. Still, the
results are impressive, and it's in the top 50 highest voted.
You might want to take a look if you haven't at the rankings - we've
added a bunch more to what we used to have (which was top 50 requested
and top 50 ranked.): http://www.scenemusic.org
As for me, the best mod ever is 'Nice Wet and Mean' by Trixal, from
the demo 'Materialized' on Amiga, included on the 4th Dimension diskmag
by Cryptoburners in '89, I believe. Maybe it was '90. All I know is I
love that tune, the way it builds, the instruments used, and the overall
production on it.
Many others are great but that's the one I'll peg as my all time
favorite.
--Andrew 'Truck' Holland
-=- A New Challenge -=-
As for my next challenge, I would like you to also write in about
your favorite demo of all time. In light of the release of MindCandy,
it should be pretty easy to refresh your memory. I'd be willing to bet
that many of you will write in with a demo on that DVD. After all, it's
pretty likely that the scene favorites will be found on the first Demo
DVD of all time. There's absolutely nothing wrong with stating your
favorite demo from the DVD. But if you have a demo in mind that isn't
on the DVD, please share that with us as well. After all, Hornet and
Fusecon will be looking for ideas for the next Demo DVD (we hope).
Once again, I'll start you off:
My favorite demo of all time apparently hasn't been as widely
accepted as I would've liked. The demo is called "Sunflower" by Pulse.
It is a DOS demo from a while back, and I honestly can't remember when
it was released, or when I first saw it. Sadly, I would have to dig
through my massive collection of CD backups to find it again, and I
don't have that much time right now. The demo sticks out in my mind for
three very good reasons.
First is the fact that the music was pretty incredible. I wouldn't
say it was the best music I've ever heard, but for the average demo at
the time, it was very dynamic and deep. It wasn't the hardcore,
oldskool demo music that you're used to hearing. It had moods, it eased
its way between moods, or it turned on you without any notice. It was a
trancy type tune, and well fit with the demo.
Next was the art. It was some of the best hand-pixeled art I've ever
seen, especially at the time. There were cut-scenes to show you some
life-like still images; a woman feeding a fish, for example. The bowl
looked real. The fish looked real. The woman looked real (and pretty
cute at that). But one of the most interesting things about the art was
that these high quality images were parsed in throughout the demo. I'm
not saying they were stuck here and there. The 2D images were given
depth, and folded into butterflies and flowers. They moved, they
floated around, and they were one small piece of the demo. Sure, this
had been done before, but I had never seen it done with such high
quality images.
Finally, I would have to say I was intrigued by the demo design.
This wasn't anything special in the world of demos, but design is
something that I have to appreciate in order to consider it a good demo.
Everything followed some sort of nature theme. And you traveled through
the landscape with the camera. Sometimes you discovered waterfalls.
Sometimes you were following dragonflies as they ripped through a small
cave system. The transitions between scenes were pretty neat, and the
music always seemed to fit perfectly.
So now it's your turn. What's your favorite demo? And if you havn't
yet, tell me what your favorite tune is.
--Coplan
--=--=--
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MindCandy DVD -- Volume I: PC Demos
In-Depth Review
By: Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
-=- Introduction -=-
I had been waiting for the Mindcandy DVD for weeks. Once, the mailman
even rang to say I needed to sign for a package, but he had pressed the
wrong bell (aaaaarg!!). But today I found a large padded envelope from
Fusecon in my mailbox. Praising the god of the postal services, I danced
up the stairs, phoned a friend to tell him he could get my movie ticket
for LOTR:The Two Towers this afternoon because I wouldn't go, shut down
my mobile phone and any other distraction, and carefully started opening
the envelope with ridiculously high expectations and a sharp knife.
-=- The Package -=-
Inside the package I found the shrink-wrapped DVD, a sticker, a
postcard and a sheet with product information. The sticker is 5.5x7 cm,
and shows in black and white the Mindcandy logo and a skull-like head.
The front of the postcard has the same image as the DVD, on the back
there's a short description of the Mindcandy DVD over some stylish line
work. Note that depending on the distributor and availability, you'll
get either the sticker or the postcard.
The front image of the DVD case shows a face connected via lightning
to a chaos of cubes and jiggly lines in a green-blueish tint. The back
shows four thumbnail demo screenshots, a content listing for each side,
and a list of the special features. The case itself is your typical
black DVD case, with clips holding the booklet left and the DVD right.
The push button that holds the DVD in place is of the sturdy two-part
type, instead of the 6 or eight pins in CD cases that always break after
some time. The booklet counts 12 pages on glossy paper. Following the
one-page introduction are 42 short descriptions with thumbnail
screenshots (one for each demo), and info such as the year it was
created, and which rank it reached at which party. Random fact: 19 of
the demos are from Finland! At the bottom of each page is a continuing
timeline from 1986 till 2002 describing the evolution of the demoscene.
Both the case and the booklet look very professional looking. A well
polished presentation.
-=- The DVD -=-
The DVD is in the DVD-10 format, which means that each side contains
one 5 GB layer. Most DVDs are in DVD-9, in which only one side contains
a 5 GB and a 4 GB layer. I'm not a fan of DVD-10: you can't randomly
browse the entire DVD without turning over the disc, and both sides look
identical except for some text written around the center in a
microscopic font. In this case, the text is white on a dark green
background, which is quite readable after all. An advantage is that you
can give each side a different menu system, which Fusecon made good use
of, and of course you have a gigabyte extra: that's about 4 demos more!
Linux users will be happy to know that the DVD is all-region, so it's
not CSS-encoded. Xine plays the raw movies without complaining.
Both sides contain a calibration section, so you can optimize your
brightness, contrast and volume levels. Very useful, but it doesn't
explain what to do if you run into troubles. I've tried it with WinDVD
and PowerDVD (Xine doesn't show the interactive menus), so I'll share my
experiences. First you need to select the type of display you use: TV or
computer monitor, this determines the test image. I've only used
monitor, since I've no standalone DVD player. The first image should be
a series of 9 gray colums, from black to white. In my case the 2 last
columns were both white, and changing the brightnes or contrast didn't
help. In PowerDVD, I had to change the color profile from the default
"Vivid" to "original", in WinDVD I had to disable hardware accelerated
decoding to fix the problem.
Next there's a test pattern to see how your player shows NTSC image
data. A short explanation: NTSC is an 60 MHZ interlaced format. That
means that in the first frame only the odd lines of the image are
updated, and in the next frame only the even lines. So the full image is
changed only 30 times each second. This is the way TV works, and due to
the hexagon pixels there's automatic blending between the odd/even lines
anyway. But a computer monitor has square pixels, and updating
alternative lines, or "weaving", can look ugly, especially when
displaying fast-moving high-contrast objects (most anime falls in this
category). The alternative is called "bob", and interpolates between the
lines. The test pattern should look like a square with two flickering
halves. Left and right are shown two wrong patterns: a solid white
square and a square with alternating white and black lines. Weave
results in the zebra-square, bob results in a solid grey square, so it
seems my equipment can't handle 60 updates per second, but bob is
definately the better way. Both PowerDVD and WinDVD autoselect bob but
allow you to force either bob or weave, Xine always uses weave. Maybe
this can be changed but I haven't found yet how (I'm new to this Linux
thing).
Both sides also contain the credits and the greetings. Each of the 5
greeting screens come with their own music and background, but they
auto-forward after 45 seconds, which is sometimes too short to read f.e.
Trixters page-long text in a tiny font.
-=- Side 1: Trancedental vistas -=-
This side contains the best demos from 1999-2001, and is meant to
impress the audience as much as possible. After the Fusecon/Hornet
presents/Mindcandy opening sequences, which contain some demo effects
themselves, a futuristic menu with metal and plastic circles on a smokey
background is shown. It took me a while to recognize the impressive
opening music: Kerosene by Acumen, which was the soundtrack from the
winning Assembly'02 animation. You can actually skip the opening
sequence when you're bored with it, unlike those annoying non-skippable
company logo animations on movie DVDs.
This side contains 22 demos: Wonder/Sunflower, 604 (by AND, Sly and
SynSun), Kosmiset Avaruus Sienet/Haujobb, Further/Moppi Productions,
Chrome/Damage, Volatile/Addict, Tesla/Sunflower, Broadband/T-Rex,
Mikrostrange/Haujobb, Moral Hard Candy/Blasphemy, TE-2RB/TPOLM, Le Petit
prince/Kolor, Energia/Sunflower, Gerbera/Moppi productions,
Lapsus/Maturefurk, Enlight The Surreal/Noice, Experimental/Wipe, Live
Evil/Mandula, The Nonstop Ibiza Experience/Orange, Codename
Chinadoll/Katastro.fi, Art/Haujobb and Kasparov/Elitegroup.
You can play the demos consecutively, or pick one from the animated
chapter selection. Bad point: during playback, you cannot move to a
specific point with the slider, you need to fastforward. The
next/previous buttons jump between the demos. The videostream is in
720*480 format, but most demos (on side 1 they're typically in 640*400)
have a black border around them. For the demos that already used a fake
"widescreen" mode, this can result in a border using over 1/3th of the
screen, but scaling the demos up would've probably looked worse. The
demos are slightly more fuzzy than the originals, especially if you're
used to see them in 1024*768. There are some artifacts visible (for
example a vertical retrace during the volumetric light tunnel of Moral
Hard Candy), but there's probably no PC that ran all originals perfectly
either; f.e. I've never seen Kasparov/Elitegroup and
Mikrostrange/Haujobb run on my PC.
[ Editor's Note: The vertical retrace that Seven speaks of for the
Moral Hard Candy demo was visible when I played it through my PC's
player (Xine for Linux). The problem does not exist when played
through my standard DVD player. I should also mention that the quality
of the graphics is increased tenfold if you have an HDTV. I pipe my
DVD player through my monitor as well, and I get a resolution of
1024x768 by default. If I drop it down to "normal television" mode, it
does blur a bit. My point is that you'll likely get different results
depending on your personal setup. ]
The two most interesting special features are the "Demographics:
Behind the Scene" featurette and the production notes. Demographics is a
16-minute movie made by Jeremy Williams (of PC Demo Fanclub fame), with
Trixter/Hornet explaining the history of the demoscene, why people form
groups and go to parties. There are also interviews with Statix (over a
webcam), Skaven, Marvel and Abyss of Future Crew, and there's even some
footage of the making of Second Reality! There are demo fragments
sprinkled through the entire movie, the soundtrack rocks, and overall
it's extremely entertaining and informational to watch. Next time I have
to explain to someone what the demoscene is about, I'll show them
"Demographics". My only complaints are that you can't jump to a specific
point with the slider, and that you can't enable subtitles: the accents
make it harder to understand what's being said in places, and I can read
English better than I can understand it.
The production notes is a text-only slideshow in which Trixter
explains in detail what they had to do to capture the demos as best as
possible, and compress them as much as possible without compromising
quality. This ranges from using specially shielded cables, over mixing
frames from different recording sessions to even creating masks by hand
in Photoshop to separate moving parts from their static backgrounds and
compress those only. Sounds like a really heroic effort!
So far I've also found three easter eggs, some if which are
definately must-sees. They are not hard to find, because moving the
mouse over a button selects it, and the last selected button stays
highlighted. So just move the mouse randomly over the different menus
and you're bound to find something.
-=- Side 2: Kickin' it oldskool -=-
The second side contains demos from 1991 till 1998. The opening
sequence is the same as side 1, but the music is a oldskool tune that I
don't recognize and the menus is based on low-res cubes, starfields and
more cubes. For the rest the menu options are identical to side 1.
The 20 oldskool demos included are: Second Reality/Future Crew,
Megademo/The Space Pigs, Cronologia/Cascada, Unreal/Future Crew,
Amnesia/Renaissance, Panic/Future Crew, Crystal Dream 2/Triton,
Show/Magic 12, Verses/Electromotive Force, Dope/Complex, X14/Orange,
Stars:Wonders of the World/Nooon, Reve/Pulse, Paimen/COMA, Inside/CNCD,
Megablast/Orange, 303/Acme, Saint/Halcyon & Da Jormas, Square/Pulse and
Riprap/Exceed. Unlike side 1, the demos here are ordered
chronologically, except for Second Reality.
Especially the oldest demos have been changed a lot in order to get
them on the DVD. Most noticably, all the long scrollers have been cut
with a circular wipe after a few tens of seconds, simply to prevent most
watchers to die from boredom. For the same reasons a lot of spinning
cubes or similar simple object shows have been shortened, looping parts
where you had to press a key to advance fade out after a while, and
upscrolling credits at the end are cut too. The helicopter animation at
the start of Megablast sadly couldn't be included because Orange ripped
a sample and Fusecon couldn't get permission to put it on the DVD. Let
this be a lesson for would-be rippers: years later your production may
not (fully) be archived for eternity due to copyright reasons... Then
there are conversion artifacts: most oldskool demos ran at 70 frames per
second, converting this to 60FPS leads to jerky movement here and there,
or blurry edges on fast-moving objects. Some parts had to be scaled up,
leading to more visible aliasing than in the original. But overall I'm
surprised at the quality of the capture: interlaced or fake-highcolor
modes look like intended, and even vectordot routines look like I
remembered them (One exception: the pixel-flag in Unreal has lost the
dark blue dots on the black background). I'm glad to finally see and
hear Show/Magic 12 and Paimen/Coma, which I never got running because
I didn't have a Gravis Ultrasound.
The best feature of the entire DVD is IMHO the audio commentary. It's
filled to the brim with funny stories and interesting facts I never knew
before. The Future Crew guys talk about how they put their demos
together, Statix tells how Vic sang the vocals of 303 at the party while
he was suffering from a hangover 3 hours before the deadline, etc etc.
Although only 1 out of every 4 groups has taken the chance to speak
their minds about their productions, the Hornet team (Pallbearer,
Trixter, Phoenix, Stony) and Jeremy provide insight in the rest of the
demos, drawing from their accumulated knowledge of the scene. The first
CD I ever bought was the Hornet CD, and to watch the DVD in the middle
of the night with headphones and hear these guys spontaneously debate
over the demos, correcting each other, cracking jokes and telling what
they admire in each production, simply blew my mind away. I was a bit
reluctant to try the audio commentary due to the lack of subtitles, but
they're very understandable, better than the featurette IMHO. (Side 1
contains a comment track too, which is also very good, but somehow I
didn't get the same feeling of excitement. Maybe it's because I watched
it during the day, or because I was in the scene from '98 and witnessed
most of the events myself).
The only special feature not present on Side 1 is a dedication to
White Shadow, who passed away in 2001. It shows fragments of his demos,
reactions from friends and a slideshow of pictures. I remember watching
DoWackaDo on my 486, little did I realize it ran equally smooth on a
268/16! Respect for such a skilled coder, and judging from the
reactions, for an overall great guy.
I've found two easter eggs on this side, and they're equally
interesting as the actual demos. One of them is really historical, and
relates to the demoscene in the same way the moonlanding footage relates
to the space program.
-=- Overall: -=-
Mindcandy managed to exceed all my expectations: it's a very
professional product, and shows great respect towards the demoscene.
Glitches are few and far between, and the people at Fusecon, Hornet and
Blue 7 Media obviously put an incredible amount of work in it (As they
tell in the commentary, all of them did this besides their full-time
job. Someone should give these guys a medal!) The only thing you could
validly criticize is the choice of demos, but that's a thorny,
subjective problem. Suffice to say that all kinds of styles are
represented, so everyone should find something to enjoy.
Also, since Mindcandy is subtitled "Volume I: PC demos", this
suggests a sequel could very well be possible. I don't know if this will
show Amiga demos, PC intros, wild entries or the PC demos that didn't
make Volume I, but I'm really looking forward to it.
--Seven
For More information on the MindCandy DVD, visit their official website:
http://www.mindcandydvd.com
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
MindCandy DVD -- Volume I: PC Demos
Another View
By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Seeing as I'm not exactly the demo expert that Seven is, I wasn't
going to write anything about the MindCandy DVD. In fact, I gave up my
rights to the press package to Seven. After all, he's the official
reviewer for this publication. But then I got my disc. And the next
three days were a blur. I ate almost every snackable item in the
house. There is now a sunken spot in my couch. I must've seen that
DVD about 5 times. And that's not counting the times I played some of
my favorite demos. So I feel as though I gotta write something about
it.
There are just certain things that always stand out in your life.
The Demoscene has been a huge part of my life for the last 12 years.
So it goes without saying that some of my memorable moments came from
the 'scene. Getting my copies of the DVD in the mail now ranks among
the best, most memorable moments of my relationship with the PC
demoscene.
It goes without saying, Fusecon, Hornet and anyone involved in the
project did an exceptional job with MindCandy. Right from the very
beginning, they've had everyone involved that needed to be involved,
even you, the scener and potential buyer for such a product. There were
nominations and elections to determine what gets on the DVD. There were
commentary feeds recorded by the creators of a given demo, and they are
available on the DVD as well. Every effort was made to preserve the
true presentation of each demo so that this DVD would become a
historical book of the 'scene. And it turned out pretty damn good, in
my opinion.
I won't go into too much detail about the demos. As a regular
observer of the scene, you can make your own deductions about all that.
The presentation, the menus, the extra features were all very well
done, and very aesthetically pleasing. But think of this DVD not as a
piece of memorabilia. Think of it as a tool. With this tool, I was
able to introduce several people to the scene. Most notably, in fact,
was my father. He's relatively computer literate, but he never really
did understand what the demoscene was all about. If anyone asks you
what the demoscene is about, you don't have to look flustered anymore.
Just play the "Demographics" feature. It's a professional documentary
style video that describes in broad strokes the scene. You might even
learn something new yourself. Your guest will learn about the history
of the demo to the world of Demoparties. No one would believe an
auditorium filled with 4,000 people (and almost as many computer
monitors) until you see that video.
But my father was also quite interested in the demos themselves. The
full-color pamphlet tells you a little bit about each demo, and where it
sits in the timeline. As I said, my father is pretty computer literate,
so he was able to relate a given demo's placement relative to the
technology at the time. 2nd Reality, for example, wouldn't be so
impressive if it were done last year. But seeing as it was written for
computers that couldn't do half of what they do now, it's quite
impressive. My one complaint about the extra information that had been
provided for the pamplet: It would've been nice to know what machine
each demo had been coded for. Was 2nd Reality coded for a 386? Or was
it coded for a 486? How much memory was required to run it? What sound
cards were needed? This is information that I would've liked to have
seen right in the pamplet.
All in all, the DVD is well worth the money. If you havn't already,
you should swing over to http://www.mindcandydvd.com and order your own
copy today. Order a couple. It's pretty cheap, considering what you
get, and you won't regret it. If you don't believe Seven's or my
account, ask anyone who already has it. I've asked hundreds of people
about it now. I have yet to find anyone that dislikes the DVD.
--Coplan
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Party Report
State of the Art
By: Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
-=- Friday 13 december -=-
A few days before State Of The Art (hereafter SOTA), I had mailed
DJefke to inquire whether he got ahold of a car to drive us to Lille,
France. Unfortunately, he was under the impression SOTA took place the
next week, and his sister had already claimed the car for the weekend.
So we had to rely on the most whimsical of transportation methods in
Belgium: the NMBS, or the Belgian railway company. I managed to catch up
with Djefke on the train without a hitch (Ghent, where I live, lies
between Antwerp, where he resides, and the partyplace), but due to the
typical NMBS-delay we had exactly one minute to switch trains in
Kortrijk. We succeeded with 20 seconds to spare and a heartrate ten
times higher.
Having arrived in Lille, we navigated to the point where a shuttle
bus from the organisers should have been. After two false alarms (a bus
from the Post and a police van), we met three Spanish sceners, one of
them from Threepixel, who were in the same situation as us. After a
failed attempt to phone the orgos, we decided to go to the partyplace by
metro. 17 stations and a walk later, we were at Le Fresnoy, a large
cultural center with several halls, in one of which SOTA takes place.
After paying the 15 Euro entrance fee we get a wristband and our
login/password combo needed for voting.
18:40:
We've installed ourselves near the back of the party hall, although
"back" is a bit ambiguous: there are two identical bigscreens on both
ends of the large rectangular room, and there's no single mega-powerful
soundsystem, instead there are several tens of medium-sized speakers
suspended from the triangular ceiling. In the middle of the hall is an
empty boxing ring, to be used as a podium, and behind that (at 2/3th of
the room) is a scaffold, used to film the partyplace from higher up.
Looking for familiar faces, Djefke spotted Brioche/Aspirine, who had
shaved his hair since I last saw him on Inscene. After watching an old
Aspirine 64K text-intro, I tried connecting to the network, which worked
immediately. Praise the greatness of DHCP! Unfortunately Djefke didn't
have DHCP on his Slackware Linux CDs, so we had to turn to
linux.google.com to find it. (I thought I was pretty oldskool with a
Pentium 166 laptop, but Djefke beat me with a 486 one. I have much to
learn.) The organizers have been very thoughtful: they've not only
supplied switches, but even UTP-cables to every seat!
The bigscreens shows several old Amiga demos including, of course,
State Of The Art/Spaceballs.
19:20:
The bigscreens tell us free food and drinks will be served at 20:00:
there's pizza, sandwiches, coffee and cola. After that more demos are
shown, but the info is transparently shown over them from time to time.
Good idea I think, this way people who missed it the first time can
still notice it, while the rest of the crowd can keep enjoying the
classics.
20:35:
After carefully testing the free pizza, I've to say it's not the best
I've ever tasted (plus only lukewarm), but you can't beat the
quality/price ratio. Djefke, who has helped organising several
LAN-parties, wonders how the SOTA orgos can finance feeding 250 sceners
during the whole party, in addition to the other costs, for only 15
Euro/person. I've no idea, but I'm grateful for it.
21:21:
The only bad point about the LTP4 party is still present in SOTA:
lots of announcements in French only :( I can understand one of them,
something about a car being parked at the wrong place, but the typical
dialogue between Djefke, our Spanish neighbours and I is more like "Did
you understand that one?" "No" "I hope it's not important".
The bigscreens shows a grainy image of a large dark place, illuminated
by green and blue spotlights and filled with sinister, barely moving
creatures. Must be either a zombie movie or a webcam stream of the party
place.
21:58:
A loud singing announces the arrival of the Haujobb guys. They have
flyers advertising the new Breakpoint party, which replaces the late
Mekka/Symposium. After proudly summing up the highlights of the new
party, it says "Your family will hate us!" (Breakpoint is also scheduled
on Easter weekend).
Melwyn makes Djefke and me pose for a photo for Slengpung, the
demoscene photo archive. He intends to take pictures of all sceners in
the party hall, because currently Slengpung is filled with pictures of
the same people over and over again, mostly boozing outside the various
party places. Meanwhile Tres and Brioche are DJ-ing chiptunes: starting
with a Second Reality mix, they provide a really fitting soundtrack for
the party (I really liked the happy-sounding loops).
And now, a special guest-appearance:
And since this seems to be an official party report for Static Line I
have to write some greetings to following people: Tobi for driving us
from Brussels to Lille, Azzarro for drinking our salmiakki vodka and
DJefke for giving me one nice can of white beer. --Melwyn/Haujobb
(The beer was Hoegaarden, if you want to know)
22:51:
I also met Skrebbel (he used to be Eggbird/Green) & Warp, who
informed me there will probably be no other dutch sceners, despite
several more registrations on the SOTA website :(. I've some 3D code on
a floppy that I want to check on Skrebbels laptop, to avoid the dreaded
"Runs only on the coders PC" syndrome, but his high-end Pentium 4 laptop
with Geforce Go 3D card does not have a floppy drive. Grmmbl, damn
progress and innovation! We fall back on the network, and everything
works fine. Thanks Skrebbel!
23:32:
I've been talking with XXX/Haujobb about the demise of
Mekka/Symposium and about what to expect from the new Breakpoint party.
It will still be a real scene event, with no gamers allowed, and there
should be more room than at the old MS location. I've also a chance to
watch the new MFX and Haujobb demos: the MFX one looks great but has
very boring music, and the Haujobb one is, well, vintage Haujobb (I had
hoped that they would continue with the style of Liquid Wen, but alas).
The chiptunes just finished, and the opening ceremony will start
(according to the bigscreens) in "10 and 3/4 minutes", a mere 5 hours
late.
23:44:
Djefkes laptop suddenly died, and it takes us a while to realise a
quarter of the hall has lost power (Due to the increased popularity of
laptops, this is less visible at a single glance). My battery is only
good for 1 hour, let's hope the problem will be fixed by then...
23:51:
Some orgos are sitting in the boxing ring, it seems like the opening
ceremony will start Real Soon.
-=- Saturday 14 December: -=-
0:07:
The power is back in the hall, but now the beamers don't have any! So
we have to wait a little longer. In the meantime the organisers
presented themselves, and Melwyn volunteers to sing a Finnish song while
the audience is waiting.
0:21:
The opening ceremony is over, it consisted of a video with fragments
of various famous demos, also from other (non-PC) platforms. I asked
Melwyn what he was singing, and it translates to "I have a huge penis,
tralalalalaaaa, it's true, tralalalalaaaaa". Crazy Fins :)
0:31:
Some old VESA2 demos are shown that I haven't seen in a long time:
Squeezed/Bomb for example, and No Exit/Nomad. I've the impression they
shown mainly French productions, though.
0:57:
"Feelings are rising to the roof. People are starting to have
striptease and taking their clothes off. Especially tobi (xxx of
haujobb) looks very handsome without a shirt. grrrr." --Melwyn (again)
Melwyn! Stop messing with my party report! If you feel like writing
porn, do so on your own computer! (And take credit for what you write,
or XXX/Haujobb will never be aware of how you feel about him :-P )
1:13:
The power is down again in our part of the hall :( The bigscreens
were showing japanese pop videos, but now they've switched to modern
Amiga demos.
1:53:
The power is back, and I notice that our neighbours on the table
before us are watching Ghost In The Shell: Standalone Complex! I've seen
the movie, and I'm really looking forward to watch the TV series.
3:37:
I had a long talk with the guys before us about our favorite anime
series, and when I'm back I notice Djefke and Melwyn have been smuggling
insults and lewd remarks to each other in this report. For the sake of
Static Lines quality, I've deleted them. No luck, guys ;)
9:59:
Back awake after a refreshening sleep! I grab a sandwich from the
food table, which is conveniently located right behind us, and check
some news websites. The internet connection is working great, although
I've heard people have problems with IRC because everyone uses the same
gateway-IP and most IRC servers allow only a single connection per IP...
10:24:
Like at Assembly, several presentations are planned, and the first
one is about to start. It's about 3DS Max tools, and the Spanish guys
decide to attend it while I keep an eye on their laptops. Again the
announcements are in French only, but at least the bigscreen shows the
most important info in English.
10:57:
The Fast compos are announced. Note that these are different from the
surprise compos: in the fast compos you've only 2 hours to make
something. For the coders, the assignment is to find a single bug in a
decompressor for a weird graphic file format. I have done my master
thesis about compression, and the flashbacks of gruelling 6-hours long
debugging sessions make me feel I better skip this compo. Some scars
take years to heal.
12:39:
Lunch is available, as you can guess it consist of... pizza and
sandwiches :) Dunno if it's done for the sake of variation, but my pizza
slice is rather charred this time. The bigscreen is showing Stars/Nooon
at the moment, and one of the French announcements may be saying that
showers are available (mais je ne suis pas sure).
13:06:
Another presentation is about to start in another hall, this time
it's about programming on mobile devices.
13:48:
The FTP for uploading the compo entries is open, and the surprise
coding compo rules are made available. The objective for the coding
compo is to make the smallest version of the decompressor of the fast
coding compo. After some doubts, I decide to give it a try.
15:07:
There's yet another presentation, about "Specials numericals effects"
on some machine. I'm struggling with Tasm under DOS, trying to remember
all the limitations of 16-bit DOS mode.
16:06:
In the hall next to us, several tens of flatscreens are suspended in
mid-air with thin wires. On a trip to the toilets I notice the screens
are now on, and visitors (non-demosceners) are walking around looking at
them. It turns out to be some kind of digital art exhibition. After
reading a flyer, I realize that State Of The Art is only one part of a
larger event, the "PIX festival de la culture digitale". It consists of
the exhibition, the presentations, a web designer gathering in another
building, an electronic music night with lots of DJs and of course the
demoparty. There are guards standing at the entrance of the party hall,
to prevent random people to get in and walk away with some hardware, so
we've to show our wristband every time. Stamba is starting his live
music set. It's techno, I like the visuals that are well synced but
without annoying hard flashes.
17:14:
Stambas performance is over, it was a bit monotonous at the start but
got better near the end. Djefke is happy showing off the free
PIX-festival T-shirt he got. I guess the PIX festival must be well
sponsored, I've never seen a demoparty with so much stuff for such a low
entrance fee.
17:42:
I've been walking around at the exhibition, it shows mostly flash
animations and a few "interactive art"-thingies on the floating
flatscreens. The visitors can walk up an improvised stair to the balcony
around the party hall, looking down on the chaos below. So now we're an
important part of an highly artistic exhibition! Who'd have expected
that? We finally get recognition of the cultural importance of the
demoscene in the modern world! How cool is that?
As if to prove me wrong, several people who are relaxing in the
boxing ring start singing "Father Jacob" in four different languages,
and an off key version of Yesterday/The Beatles is followed by someone
repeatedly screaming "Jesus must save you". So much for our artistic
reputation :)
18:39:
The only oldskool entry has been shown, on an Oryx computer. Either
it crashed or it was very short, only a red State Of The Art logo
scrolling up. Aha, it's reshown, with sound this time: there's a logo,
scrolling copper bars, a funny cartoon, a wobbling logo, some waving
credits, a beautiful picture of a two-headed dragon, and an effect
looking like a phonograph.
19:51:
Willbe and Chaosnet are playing a very nice ambient set. The deadline
for the surprise coding compo is tomorrow at 11 o'clock, which is great
because a) my code doesn't even work, and it's very non-optimized, and
b) I want to catch some sleep before the compos start. The pizza for
dinner is perfect: warm but not charred, but the cheese on my sandwich
looks menacingly orange. Ah well, you only live once.
22:33:
Lots of compos have passed! There were 4 wild entries: 3 low-quality
but funny ones plus one more serious entry from Cocoon. The fast Gfx
compo had only 3 entries, but the raytraced one had 13 images, there
were several oldskool entries and the handdrawn compo is still going on
with over 20 pictures so far. As can be expected, a lot of them are of
very high quality.
The scaffold in the room has two comfortable couches on top of it.
I've no idea how the orgos have gotten them up there, but they make the
perfect place to watch Vip2/Popsy Team, State Of Mind/Bomb or the other
demos they're showing right now: it's right in front of the bigscreen,
you don't have to stare upwards so much, you can rest your feet on the
handrails,... But since I start to fall asleep, I go back down, vote
for the compos that have passed and unroll my sleeping bag again.
-=- Sunday 15 december -=-
0:08:
Djamm is now playing his set, I thought I would have missed the music
compos but they have been delayed. I continue messing around in Alab,
hoping to get something that assembles correctly.
1:08:
The music compos should start in 30 minutes, says the bigscreen. I've
completed the translation from C to Asm, but my code doesn't work as it
should :( The Spanish guys consider me crazy to do the translation by
hand, instead of starting from the ASM-output that the C-compiler gives
you, but I think you have less overhead that way.
2:00:
History repeats itself: the music compo should start "very s[ota]oon
now", and my code is still not working...
2:27:
The music compos have finally started: first the chiptunes, then the
fast music compo (with some bladerunner remixes), and now the oldskool
music.
3:54:
The music compo is still running, but people are losing interest due
to the length and their tiredness. I feel sorry for the musicians who
spent a lot of effort to make a great tune which gets barely any
applause.
4:26:
Joy! The code works as it should, and is really small, even with some
debug stuff still in it: 761 bytes after packing! The Threepixel guys,
whose entry is currently twice as large, are impressed :)
The music compo is still going on, now a happy hardcore tune is
playing that is most probably written by Skrebbel (The solo compos do
not show the name of the creator, to prevent namevoting, but who else in
the scene likes happy hardcore?)
4:40:
The vocal music compo has several songs that could be played straight
on the radio IMHO. The increase in quality is impressive, compared to
the vocal compo at Assembly.
5:36:
Everyone tries to stay awake for the democompos. I'm happy with my
progress, the entry is already less than 670 bytes!
5:59:
The demo and intro compos should start any minute now. Not a moment
too soon, because people are really having problems staying awake.
Besides, the compos should have started 10 after midnight...
7:27:
The demos and 4K intros are over! There were no 64K intros at all,
and only 3 4Ks, but almost 20 demos (2 of which where disqualified for
unspecified reasons). Besides the MFX and Haujobb demos, there was also
a Cocoon demo in their old Shad-style: blood and torture everywhere, but
now in high-res. Superjam Superstars is a really cute and funny entry
worth getting, and the Ketchup Killers (a old Belgian group) made a
comeback with some weird bezier-spline compressed movie. There were also
a few software-rendered 3D-demos, one of them looked better than most
accelerated entries.
8:36:
The FTP is open for downloading all entries, and for the upload of
the surprise code. Skal, who's the orgo responsible for the surprise
coding compo, told me someone had an entry of 521 bytes, but that it was
still a bit buggy. Panic! My code is still over 600 bytes big! Aaargh...
9:31:
I'm still trying to remove a few more bytes, but exhaustion is taking
its toll. Meanwhile my FTP program is leeching all compo entries. Djefke
comes back from a visit to the Ketchup Killers, confirming that they
really want to start over, so their entry was not a single release for
nostalgias sake, as I thought. Cool! We could really use some more
active groups in Belgium!
11:26:
Aaargh! No matter how many time you have, it's never enough for
size-optimisations. Especially if you mess up, over-optimize to the
point that the code doesn't work anymore, and then are too tired to
remember which changes you did recently (Yes, some people who will
remain unnamed are that stupid). I had to submit an older version that
is still over 600 bytes big, because such things happen of course half
an hour before the deadline, and I couldn't re-apply all the changes
that made it slightly smaller than 600 bytes :( In a foul mood, I attack
the breakfast table, and then start mindlessly browsing the LAN.
On a positive note, there *will* be hourly shuttles back to the
trainstation, which is nice. The compo results should be ready at 14
o'clock, but quite a few people laugh unbelievingly at this
announcement. The frequent schedule slippage has made them a bit
cynical, and since the doors are open til 18 o'clock...
14:14:
Lo and behold, the prize ceremony starts at the promised time! There
are lots of hardware prizes, which are all stocked in a big heap in the
midlle of the boxing ring. After thanking the sponsors and all people
who helped organizing SOTA, Krafton starts the usual 3th place, 2nd
place, 1st place cycle, with the audience applauding their hands in
between. I lose my confidence in my coding abilities when Silex wins the
surprize coding compo with an entry smaller than 500 bytes. Where on
earth did I used more than 100 bytes too much?
The arrangement of the prizes (all stacked in a pile) poses a
problem: it might look nice, but it's hard to find a specific item.
After each new name, three orgos dive in the pile to find the winners
prize, which can take a few minutes. This greatly prolongs the ceremony,
and Djefke and I have to get the shuttle of 3 o'clock, so we have to
leave before the demo winners are announced :(
Overall, State Of The Art was an amazing party. I've never seen so
many releases on the first edition of a party, although that may be
because many people see SOTA as the successor of the LTP series. There
were about 250 visitors from 18 countries, people even came from as far
as Poland! The organisers were friendly and tried to fix problems such
as the power outages quickly. My only peeves are the French
announcements, and the schedule slippage. It was also funny to be part
of a big "Digital culture" festival, although I wonder what this means
for future SOTA parties: will they continue on their own, or will the
PIX festival also be repeated on a yearly base? Guess we'll just have to
wait and see...
Greets to everyone I met at SOTA, and see you again at Breakpoint!
--Seven
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Competition Announcement
The Spectrum Music Competition
By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
The Spectrum Music Competition 2003 has started.
The Spectrum Music Competition is a music contest with a really
unique concept: You choose one of three colours (red, green, or blue)
and make a song inspiered by it.
A couple of reviewers will listen to all songs and give comments, as
well as points for different things, like how good the song expresses
the choosen colour, creativity, musical quality, and technical quality.
Also, I will play the songs for random people asking them what colour
they think it represents. Your song gets extra points if the guess is
right.
The prizes for the competition winners are glass oil lamps with a
treble clef and "Spectrum Music Competition 2003" engraved. Handblown
from Visby Glasblåseri, Sweden.
Visit the Competition Site: http://www.nifflas.com/spectrum/
--Nifflas
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
The Lineup
By: Novus
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Welcome to The Lineup! Every month, I scour through the hundreds of
new releases on the scene's major archive sites to find the best new
music, saving you the trouble of having to download 20 instant-delete
songs to find 1 that's worth keeping.
I have an important note regard November's Lineup: it has been
brought to my attention by Gargoyle at The MOD Archive that one of last
month's selections, "A Moment In Tears" by Norma Segui and J Graham of
the group CavinCrew, is actually a rip of "A Moment In Time" by
Saboteur, and that other CavinCrew songs are under scrutiny as well. I
was not aware of this at the time, and I thank Gargoyle for bringing
this to my attention.
I'm also looking for feedback from you folks on how good a job I'm
doing so far. Are the songs listed in The Lineup as good as you were
hoping they'd be? Do I need stricter standards? Looser standards? More
openness to other genres? E-mail me at vince_young@hotmail.com and
sound off!
In the meantime, you may consider the following 23 tunes to be the
best tracks of November/December 2002:
"A Storm In Paradise" - FleshDance - dance
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1782
"Against the Wind" - FireBot - pop
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1755
"Atlantis Lost: Storm Remix" - Storm - trance
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1724
"Awakening Of Venus" - Louigi Verona - orchestral
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1784
"Beyound The Space" - A. C. S. - trance
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1821
"Dark Teknoid" - Double D - techno
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1765
"Detuned" - DJ Keys - trance
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1701
"Earth Cycles: Awakening" - Solo - ambient
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1779
"Funny Blue Sky" - Ultrasyd - disco
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1749
"Impaler" - Zond 3 - drum'n'bass
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1820
"Kajahtaa: Slow Mix" - T-DJ - pop
http://www.modarchive.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi?K/kajahtaa_slowmix.it
"Let Your Self Go" - A. C. S. - trance
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1822
"Mental Decay" - Zond 3 - industrial
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1691
"November Times" - Dusodril - pop
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1788
"Pandora's Box" - Christofori - demostyle
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1713
"Reflected" - Abyss - trance
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1825
"Shemida" - Aitrus - ambient
http://www.modplug.com/mods/nrdetail.php3?session=&detailno=10183
"Sphinx" - Virgill - pop
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1794
"Surrounded" - Pete H - dance
http://www.modplug.com/mods/nrdetail.php3?session=&detailno=10182
"Technicolor Combustion" - Christofori - pop
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1708
"The Climb Of The Mountain" - Storm & Stance - trance
http://www.modplug.com/mods/nrdetail.php3?session=&detailno=10215
"The Sunny Flower" - Cooth - orchestral
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1834
"Trance Impulse" - Storm - trance
http://www.homemusic.cc/Songs/songs.get.php?soId=1760
Take care!
--Novus
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Editorial
Art All Around
By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Now that I have the Mind Candy DVD, I've been showing it to everyone
that I feel might have some appreciation for the art at the core of
the demoscene. As expected, I got a lot of oooo's and ahhhh's. The
demos were quite the talk of my group of friends. One person in
paticular, my girlfriend, asked a question that isn't so easy to answer:
"Where do these people get the inspiration for these things?" I
couldn't answer that right away. I honestly had to think about it a
very long time. Today, I think I'm ready to answer that question.
Inspiration for an art is not something that has ever come very easy
to me. I write music, but I have never claimed to be very good at it.
My personal inspiration comes from the fact that I tool around with song
ideas almost every day for a couple of hours a day. If you start a new
song idea that often, you're bound to come across something that you
like. But that's not a very efficient way to come up with ideas. You
end up throwing out hundreds more scrap tunes than you keep.
Someone, I'm not sure exactly who, has been quoted millions of times:
"Stop and smell the flowers." It is my belief that the best inspiration
for any art form comes from this type of philosophy. Sadly, in this day
and age, this philosophy is hard to embrace on a daily basis. We all
live lives that require us to be running almost as soon as we wipe the
sleepy dust from our eyes. And we continue running through our days
until usually late evening. I, for one, only get a couple of hours a
night to relax. Through the course of our day, how often to we have the
opportunity to "smell the flowers" as it were. Especially in these days
of high powered, amplified, high resolution electronic entertainment,
what benefit does the average guy get out of such a simple practice?
I'm not saying that such a philophy is bad, or even boreing. I'm just
not sure many people realize the benefits of noticing your surroundings.
To an artist, the simplist detail can easily be an inspiration. The
sound your ring makes against a wine glass could spark a whole new song
in your mind. The way a plastic bag blows across an empty parking lot
could light a new image in your mind, just before you put it on canvas.
There's no telling what will spark your thoughts or make your mind glow.
Just imagine what new song or new images might come out of the every day
tasks that you take for granted. After thinking about such a thing,
imagine how much you've already missed? When you watch a demo, it's often very obvious that a lot of time was
spent on its design. Regardless of that fact, however, everything
started with one idea. One simple idea. The same goes for music. The
same goes for a drawing. That riff in the middle of the song could have
been the starting point for its writer. To you, it's a central point in
the song. It might not even be all that significant to you. It might
not even be anything more than a drum riff. It might not be anything
more than a given sample as it chimes out at random points in the song.
Does that matter to you, the listener? I doubt it. I doubt that the
song's writer thinks so as well. I would even wager that the song's
writer doesn't much care. But to the writer, he knows that it was the
single, most inspirational piece to the song. At least to him.
I wrote a song the other day. It's a pretty good one, and I might
even release it to the public. I realized the answer to my girlfriend's
question when I sat back and listened to a pre-mix of the song. My
starting point for the song was actually the ending. It sounds crazy,
but my inspiration was a laugh from a girl at work. It's a crazy laugh,
and it often annoys me. But she laughed at something I said last
week...and it chimed in my head. I got home on thursday night, and sat
down at my computer and my synth. I started playing with the sounds on
my synth to see if I could duplicate the sounds of that girls laugh. I
was able to, and started forming a song around it. That became the end
of the song. 6 notes is all that came from that. Those notes were
played on an oboe, and it doesn't really resemble the laugh at all. In
a 4 minute song, it really only makes up about 3 seconds. Who knew that
I would be able to devise a tune from such a laugh (an awful one at
that). What would really happen if I didn't do something stupid enough
to make this girl laugh (at me)? Would I not have a song? Honestly, I
might still have a song. I can force a song. I can create music all
the time. But it wouldn't be tight. It wouldn't sound nearly as clean
or as inpsired as this song would. The best music, the best art, the
best demos all have something in common. They come from great
inspiration.
Inspiration comes from many places. Most are natural. Most
inspirations are as simple as paying more attention to your mother when
she talks to you. Many are even as simple as watching parts of a movie
that aren't in focus. Look at the things that you aren't supposed to.
Listen to the things that are just out of ear shot. Feel the things
that you might often ignore. Inspiration is about the things that the
average guy doesn't notice. It's about the things that are often
overlooked.
So when you go about your daily routine tomorrow...stop and smell
those flowers. When you hear, see or feel something new, think about
what you can derive from it. It might be the next competition winner.
--Coplan
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Early Dawn Reflections
Unfinished Business
By: The Watcher
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Saturday morning, back home after a mid-week spent in Disneyland Paris.
After days and days of roller coasters, puppets, dreams, and an almost
deadly dose of "it's a small world", I can't wait to get back at my
desk, put Audiophonik in my CD-player, and crank up the volume. Of
course it was good fun, but I'm sure glad to dive back into the
demoscene, where the real magic is happening.
Every so often, I get a little depressed by the sheer amount of
unfinished scene-material rotting away in 'temp', 'test' and 'scratch'
folders on my harddisk. I know I am not alone in this, I think almost
every scener, be it coder, musician or graphician, struggles with the
fact that less than 40% of the things that takes us so much effort to
produce, actually ends up as part of a finished production. So much time
and energy we waste on fragments of code that produce not quite the cool
visual effect hoped for, single patterns of soul-moving, hearth-pumping
melody that somehow won't fit into any song at all, brilliant details in
drawings that are thrown away for being ugly as a whole.
Although I've always been the first to complain about this rather
frustrating aspect of the demoscene, of late I am starting to realize
that maybe it is not such a bad thing at all. Finishing things is hard
work, and the last 10% of any production always takes up about 90% of
the total time. That last 10% is also the least rewarding part, since
all the fun stuff has been done and, worst of all, there is nothing left
to learn from the production. All this from a coder's perspective of
course, but I guess it must be pretty much the same for all you
performers of the arts of color and sound. Unless the production is
really worth it, finishing it just isn't fun. And fun is what this is
all about. If I wanted to code boring stuff, I could just sit at the
office and earn money while doing so.
Imagine what would happen if we would always finish every single thing
we started. Not only would we all be peevish and cranky because of our
miserable, boring hobby, the demoscene would be flooded with worthless
pieces of work! Just think of what it would do to the overall quality of
the scene if every crappy experiment you ever started (after, say, you
just broke up with your girl and just reached the bottom of the bottle)
was made into a full-blown production. Not the kind of things I would
like to see topping the scene-charts, definitely.
One way to look at it is that by discontinuing projects that aren't
promising enough, we perform natural selection. Assuming that works, fun
enough to finish, are also the ones most renewing and creative (which I
think is a quite safe assumption), it is simply a case of survival of
the fittest. I think Darwin would be proud of us! (Note: Yes, I know
that his evolutionary theory is actually all about propagating, but for
the sake of decency let's keep away from disturbing alliterations like
copulating code, mating music and groin-grinding graphics). So please,
don't feel too sad about flushing another project. In a way you are
saving the scene from extinction!
--The Watcher
P.S. Off-topic piece of advice: when playing oldschool SID files using
winamp, don't forget to turn off winamp's preamp first. I think I might
be needing a new pair of speakers now. And a new pair of ears too.
--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
Link List
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
Portals:
SceneSpot (Home of Static Line).......http://www.scenespot.org
CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de
Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com
Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena
ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch
Archives:
Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch
Demo Groups:
3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
3State...................................http://threestate.com
7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed
Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh
Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula
Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org
Music Labels, Music Sites:
Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd
Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm
Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon
MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
Moods.............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu/
Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
Noerror.......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror
One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine
SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org
Triad's C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org
UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm
Programming:
Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org
3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html
Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org
Magazines:
Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/di_mag
Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org
Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de
Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
Jurassic Pack...........................www.jurassicpack.de.vu
Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de
Parties:
Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org
Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl
Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org
Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li
Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org
Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl
The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk
Others:
<*> MindCandy DVD......................http://www.mindcandydvd.com
Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
#coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt
Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
#trax e-mail list.............................................
.............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine
IRC Channels:
Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene
Programming.....................................ircnet #coders
Programming....................................efnet #flipcode
Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel
Music.............................................ircnet #trax
Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr
Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr
Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr
Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene
Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu
Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger
--=--=--
----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------
-=- Staff -=-
Editor: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Staff Writers: Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
Novus / Vince Young / vince_young@hotmail.com
Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com
Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com
The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / watcher@tuhb.org
Tech Consultant: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org
Static Line on the Web: http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
Static Line Subscription Management:
http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line
If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware
that we will format your article to 76 columns with two columns at the
beginning of each line. Please avoid foul language and high ascii
characters. Contributions (Plain Text) should be e-mailed to Coplan
(coplan@scenespot.org) by the last Friday of each month. New issues are
released on the first Sunday of every month.
See you next month!
-eof---=------=--=------=--=--
